THE NEEDED 
REVIVAL .... 



Rev. GEO. S. ANDERSON 



^ 



oP^. 



Ito33- 



^ 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL 



BY 



Rev. GEO/''s.'' ANDERSON, 

Pastor of 

Highland Congregational Church, 

Somerville, {Mass. 



BOSTON : 
PRESS OF SAMUEL USHER, 
, 171 Devonshire Street. 
1899. 

L 



^AaaaT' I'D .<^^ 



292fi8 

Copyright, 1809, 
By GEO. S. ANDERSON. 

J WW u COPIES Klii^>.ivi£0. 



1^ AFPiluiociy jj 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 



Text : Ps. 85:6. — " Wilt thou not revive us again : that thj people 
may rejoice in Thee." 

I. "We need a Revival that will sanctify the 
church and bring God's people to a higher plane 
of Christian experience ; that will burn up the euchre 
outfit, and smash up the punch-bowl, and spill out the cider, 
and shut out the Sunday paper, this advance poster of the 
anarchist's pandemonium, and start an exodus of God's 
people from the dance halls ^ and the theatres to the lone- 
some prayer-rooms and the deserted churches ; that will 
rescue the thousands who are being engulfed in the whirling 
maelstrom of unholy pleasure ; that will lasso the Jehu of 
greed, who with tightened reign and torturing spur is driving 
men with lightning speed to hell ; that will bury duplicity 
and hypocrisy in nameless graves, and make man's life as 
transparent as a noon-tide sunbeam ; that will slay the demon 
lust, that blights the bloom of youthful cheek, and dulls the 
lustre of the eye, and takes the sprighthness from the step and 
wrecks the home, and blasts and damns both sexes and all 



1 " If you have given yourself to the prayer meeting until you have lost social feeling 
then the party and dance might be sought with profit. Seek to go away from the prayer 
meeting with glad hearts, and from the dance feeling that you have been made better and 
have made some one else better." — Rev. Henry R. McCartney, Congregationalist, in 
the Civic Centre, Georgetown, Mass., December, 1893, during a Revival Season. 

"The Rev. E. L. Stoddard, d.d., rector of St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, 
has organized a dancing class which is to meet in the church edifice once a week, and 
which is composed of members of the Bible class." — Boston Record, January 24, 1898. 



. THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

ages, and enwrap the soul with God's spotless purity as a gar- 
ment of light ; that will sweep out all hate and malice and 
bitterness and envy with all their kindred swarm that roost and 
hatch their filthy brood in man's heart, as Egypt's locusts were 
swept out by the wind from heaven, and give instead a love as 
pure as the crystal waters of a mountain lake, as gentle as the 
soft zephyrs of the South, as forgiving as the Calvary love of 
Him who breathed forgiveness on His murderers' heads; that 
will banish the popular unbelief that is eating like dry rot at 
the heart of aggressive spiritual work, and compel Christians 
to accept the teachings of Scripture on the great cardinal doc- 
trines of Christianity, and receive what baffles their under- 
standing in hope of the sunburst of clearer light; that will end 
the opposition to faithful preaching that seeks by criticism of 
the message to justify itself in sin, and that will make the 
doctrines of grace, however deep, however humbling, however 
much opposed to preconceived i^otions, as welcome as the sight 
of land to shipwrecked seamen, or the vision of an oasis to 
the weary dust-choked traveler on the sandy plain ; that will 
remove this widespread guilty dread of higher truth and lead 
Christians to crucify the pet indulgences that chain them to 
earth, and receive the deepest, richest things of grace, even if 
they are, thereby, dubbed extremists and lose caste in society ; 
that will remove our owl-like bUndness that keeps us in the 
shade, amid the noontide blaze of revelation, and open the 
^^eyes of our heart;' "that we may know the things that are 
freely given to us of God," that we may see not the barren rocks 
of Patmos but the heavenly city with its open gateways, and its 
shimmering light, not the empty water-skin and the dying child 
but the guiding angel and the sparkling stream, not the dri\'ing 
storm and the sinking ship but the radiant figure of the ap- 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 5 

preaching Lord, not the frenzied mob and the flying missiles, 
but the open heavens and the welcoming Christ ; that will pro- 
mote a deeper study of the sacred Scriptures, so that instead 
of rushing through a short Psalm to quiet the conscience, 
though it starve the heart, we shall spend days and nights por- 
ing over the sacred page to catch the message of the Spirit, so 
that we may see not page afrer page of cold black type, but 
the whole part from first to last luminous and tremulous with 
the glory of the Christ " who is and was, and is to come ; " that 
will put the crown of royalty on prayer not on effort, and keep 
us from the fatal snare of working for men without waiting on 
God, that will repair the broken-down altars in the home, and 
fan the fires of devotion in the church and make the throne of 
grace not a dumping ground for words, but a treasure house 
whose motto is not talk but take ; that will beget in every 
beHever's heart an intolerable dissatisfaction with present at- 
tainment, anc the "little Jack Horner" spirit of self-con- 
gratulation, and lead the army of the redeemed from the desert 
of failure and fruidessness to the promised land of Pentecostal 
fulness ; that will end, and end forever, this wretched experi- 
ence of constant sinning and repenting, and reveal the door to 
victory which a pierced hand has thrown open for every re- 
generate soul ; that will stamp out our palliated inconsistencies 
over which men stumble into hell and write " Holiness to the 
Lord " across the life of every follower of the immaculate Son 
of God. 

Num. 11:5, 6 ; Josh. 7 : 10, 11, 12 ; i Peter i : 15, 16 ; 
I Peter 2 : 9 ; 2 Cor. 6 : 14-18 ; Eph. 4 : 13-16 ; Eph. 5 : 26, 
27; I Cor. 2:9, 10; Heb. 5:12-14; 2 Tim. 4-3; 2 
Chron. 15 : 1-15 ; Acts 3 : 19 ; Is. 55 : i, 2 ; 2 Tim. 2 : 19 ; 
Titus 2 : 11-14. 



6 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

II. We need a Revival that will lead God's peo- 
ple out to greater activity in Christian service ; that 
will take the burden from the backs of overburdened pastors, 
and arouse the sleeping majority who hibernate between 
revivals, and wake up too weak to work ; that will cure the 
Sunday headache and the prayer- night tiredness, and cast out 
the spirit of sloth that ties the hands and chains the feet, and 
gives its victim holy horrors when he thinks of midnight meet- 
ings or protracted work, and makes the little service that he 
does seem hard as tread-mill turning such as Samson did ; 
that will stop the whining cry of unfitness and enable every 
child of God to grip with living faith the cable of God's power 
that belts the earth to heaven, and thus use the power that 
made the worlds ; that will silence the kickers and shake up 
the shirkers, and put all the Christians to work in loving, 
hearty, Spirit-born harmony, as frictionless as the clockwork of 
the skies; that will blot out *' curtailment " over benevolences 
and write it over expenditures ^ ; that will kill out this aristo- 
cratic antarctic stoicism that is more afraid of zeal than sin, and 
more concerned about the rules of etiquette than the precepts of 
the decalogue, and give us instead a heaven-born enthusiasm 
whose ^^ good form " is ih^ penitent form, and whose home is on 
battlefields not in graveyards ; that will draw out the Gospel 
Train from the side track on which she has been switched by rush 
of other work, and give her the right of way ; that will teach us 
the unspeakable privilege of soul-winning, and lead us to follow 
each gospel sermon, not with so much talk about mercury up or 



^ " Four churches in New York City stand upon ground which is worth $12,000,000. 
Thirteen other churches rest on real estate valued at $7,000,000, or more than half a 
million each, and these churches are all Protestant and nominally evangelical. Trinity 
Church alone represents an investment of $5,000,000." — TJie Ram's Horn, February' 4, 
1899. 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 7 

mercury down, but with earnest words and serious looks, that 
wing conviction to the heart; that will turn lives that are 
bleak and unsightly as sun-scorched plains into Edens of love- 
liness and fruitfulness ; that will make our churches not like 
the Dead Sea in its land-locked selfishness, but like the Great 
Western Lakes that give a Niagara to the world. 

The church member who is " standing idle in the market- 
place " should carefully read the following table : — 



STATISTICS OF THE CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES 
FOR 1898. 

(See the Independent, January 5, 1899.) 



NET GAIN IN MEMBERS." 



Methodists . 
Baptists 
Presbyterians 
Congregationalists 
Unitarians 
Christian Scientists 
Salvation Army 
Volunteers of America 



[62,196, one for every 37 members. 



31.465, „ 


„ 


„ 33 


52,239, „ 


„ 


„ 29 


10,669, „ 


„ 


„ 59 


5,000, „ 


„ 


» 15 


30,000, „ 


„ 


„ 2 


50,000 (Conversions). 


15,000 


)9 





According to the foregoing, two Christian Scientists secured 
as many additions as fifteen Unitarians, or twenty-nine Presby- 
terians, or thirty-three Baptists, or thirty-seven Methodists, or 
fifty-nine Congregationalists. Certainly " it is high time to 
awake out of sleep." 



1 " The immediate effect of the Moody meetings on the membership of the churches 
(in Boston and vicinity 145 churches in all) is seen in the large additions made that year, 
as follows: — 



Comparative Additions. 



Baptists (by baptism) 
Congregationalists (on profession) 
Methodists (on probation) 





Moody 






Year. 




1876 


1877 


1878 


928 


1,351 


538 


551 


1,629 


316 


986 


1,330 


836 



— Boston Transcript, January 23, 1897. 



8 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 



Rev. 3 : 14-2 2 ; Acts 8:1, 4 ; Neh. 4:21-23; Judges 7 : 
1-22 ; I Cor. 1:27, 28 ; Matt. 20 : 1-16 ; Matt. 25 : 24-27 ; 
Matt. 25 : 34-46 ; Mai. 3:10; Phil. 2 : 30 ; Deut. 32 : 30 ; 
John I :4i, 45^ 46. 

III. We need a Revival that will turn ritualism out of 
doors, shatter the chains of ecclesiasticism, annihilate denomi- 
nationalism and bring the scattered, shattered, strengthless 
sections of the Church of Christ into one united, loving, aggres- 
sive, sin-crushing, all-conquering army, whose very presence 
will paralyze the confederate hosts of iniquity. 

We hear much talk to-day in certain circles about the dis- 
agreement ( ?) between God's Word and God's works ; would 
that we heard a little more about the disagreement between 
God's Word and man's work. Look at it in reference to 
denominationalism. 

GOD'S WORD. 
"One Lord, one Faith." — 
(Eph.4:5.) 
" Now 1 beseech you breth- 
ren by the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ . . . that there 
be no divisions among you; 
but that you may be perfectly 
joined together y — (i Cor. 
I : 10.) 

Dr. Joseph Parker says that " the Turk prays to his God that 
the discords of the Christians may never be settled." 

I Cor. I : 11-13 ; i Cor. 3 : 21-23 \ ^ Cor. 12 : 4-31 ; Gal. 
3 : 28 ; Eph. 2:16; Eph. z'- Z\ Eph. 1:10; John 1 7 : 1-26 ; 
Matt. 23 : 8 ; Phil. 2 : 2, 3. 

IV. We need a Revival that will burn up whole barrels 
of lavender-scented sermonettes and diamond-studded essays, 
and consign to eternal oblivion the popular Sunday evening 





MAN'S WORK. 


One Lord, 


150 Faiths (U. S. Statistics). 


4 Bodies 


(kinds) of Plymouth Brethren. 


6 „ 


„ „ Adventists. 


12 „ 


„ „ Presbyterians 


13 M 


„ „ Baptists. 


17 » 


„ „ Methodists. 


20 


„ „ Lutherans. 




— U. S. Statistics. 



. 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. g 

lecture on secular topics ; that will compel the man, who stands 
between God and man, to preach not on topics culled from 
the daily paper, or the current review, however true i, but on 
truth written by God's finger on the sacred page, as were 
the "ten words" of Sinai on the stone; on truth that will 
" feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his 
own blood," and thus keep " the flock" from straying into 
the jungles of Christian Science,^ the deserts of Theosophy, the 
mountain wilds of Spiritualism, or the bogs of Infidelity ; not 
on truth which like an opiate soothes and quiets but does not 
heal, but on truth that like a surgeon's lancet cuts away the 
hidden cancerous growth of sin ; on truth that stops the sin- 
ner in his downward road and Uke a flash of lightning in a 
midnight storm shows the dark precipice ahead and saves the 
endangered life ; on truth that grips the guilty conscience with 
an iron grip, that tears the mask of falsehood from the face of 
sin, that pours its awful light upon the inner soul, that shuts 
the sinner's mouth and brings him speechless, robbed of pride 
and shorn of strength, to the low-arched doorway of repent- 
ance, and as he stands condemned, by self as well as God 
shows him Christ's Cross, God's Remedy for Man's Sin. 

The following hand bill, circulated by a Massachusetts min- 
ister is self-explanatory : — 



1 " It has been proved that knowledge, the most thorough worldly education, will not 
develop moral strength." — Rev. Thomas Van Ness (Unitarian), Boston Journal, 
January 23, 1899. 

.2 " A church which has increased its membership within the past twelve months nearly 
four thousand has a wonderful record. That is what the First Church of Christ, Scient- 
ist, has to show for the past twelve months, and of the number nearly 2,400 were ad- 
mitted to membership with the beginning ol the new year of 1898. There were admitted 
at the beginning of the month of July last more than 1,400, making the full growth for 
the past twelve months about 3,800. The total membership is now about 10,000, and it is 
said to be the largest individual church in the United States of any denomination." — 
Boston Journal, January 3, 1898. 



lO THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 

Rev. , Pastor. 



Beginning on Sabbath evening, November thirteenth, 1898, 
will give a series of Chapel Addresses, on 

Some Lessons from Astronomy. 

Nov. 13. The Stars in their Courses. 

Nov. 20. The Solar System. 

Nov. 27. The Light of the .Sun, 

Dec. 4. The Help of the Moon. 

Dec. II. The Discovery o^ Neptune. 

Dec. 18. The Law of Gravitation. 



A Cordial Welcome to All. 

I wonder if his text for the series was Matt. 6:23: "If, 
therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that 
darkness." 

The Boston Herald oi March 16, 1896, contains in one of 
its editorial columns the following statement, which if true, 
should drive every minister of the gospel to his knees in deep 
humiliation and shame : " It has been significantly noted by 
thoughtful persons that the old-fashioned revival has practi- 
cally passed away in New England, and the inquiry is active 
as to what has taken its place. In former years two forces 
have been mainly instrumental in leading people to a definite 
religious purpose. One has been Christian nurture and educa- 
tion, and the other has been the influence of a religion of 
fear and punishment. It is now over twenty years since the 
latter method of arousing religious interest has disappeared. 
It has been fought all along the lines, and it will be hard to 
find ministers in New England of education and intelligence 
who pursue the old methods. . . . We are in a new dispensa- 
tion to-day, where the Universalist, the Unitarian, the Baptist, 



THE NEEDED RE VIVAL. \ \ 

the Congregationalist, the Churchman, and the Roman CathoHc, 
when they do not insist upon their differences of creed, all 
present very nearly the same moral teaching, enforced by the 
same sanction. The positive truths of Christianity are taught 
with great force, and the old doctrines of sin and repentance 
have been comparatively ignored ^ ^ 

Rev. George H. Wells, of Minneapolis, said at the National 
Congregational Council in Syracuse, that "the pulpit announce- 
ments in our daily papers are like a catalogue of the animals 
in Noah's ark, or in Barnum's greatest show on earth." 

Num. 22 : i8 ; 2 Tim. 4 : 1-4 ; Ex. 4:12; Acts 19 : 19, 20 ; 
2 John 10 ; Acts 8:5; Acts 4 : 29 ; i Cor. 2:1,2; i Cor. i : 
17, 18 ; Neh. 8 : 1-8 ; Jer. i : 7, 8, 9. 

V. We need a Revival that will unmask sin whether 
it is clothed in rags, or robed in the garments of opulence ; 
whether it crouches in the darkness of the midnight 
street, or sits in defiant brazenness where the sunlight falls j 
whether it is sanctioned by law, or leads to the felon's cell and 
the- hangman's rope; whether it bears the mark of Cain, or 
comes with a Judas kiss that hides a serpent's fang ; whether 
it sits in the down-town opium joint, the grog shop, or the 
brothel, or reclines in well-upholstered pews, and chants with 
unholy lips the songs of angels and the praises of the Most 
High. 

A revival that will unmask it wherever found, and hold it up 
in all its hateful hideousness so that men may see that it is not 
simply an infirmity or a scrofula of the blood, but a crime, — a 
crime against High Heaven — which if unf or given hurls man's 
undying spirit to hell's abysmal depths of blackness and of woe. 



The italics are ours. 



12 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

2 Sam. 12:7; Matt. 14 : 4 ; Acts 7 : 51, 52 ; Acts 24 : 25 ; 
Matt. 23 : 33 ; Josh. 7 : 16-26 ; i Kings 18 : 18 ; Acts 8 : 20, 
23 ; Amos 4 : 1-13. 

VI. We need a Revival that will attack the giant forces 
of evil in society which threaten the welfare of the church and 
of the home ; that will denounce the Sunday paper, and the 
Sunday excursion, and the Sunday baseball, and every other 
evil thing that desecrates God's holy day of rest; that will 
condemn the gigantic trusts ^ and monopolies that wreck and 
ruin like Western tornadoes, that foster class antagonism, pro- 
voke anarchy, and bring bankruptcy and poverty ; that will 
uncover the cesspools of political corruption, and demand 
that law makers be law keepers, men whose shibboleth is not 
party, price, power, or policy, but principle ; that will attack the 
saloon, and brand license money '' blood mojiey " and the 
hcense voter *' murderer" ; that will hurl the anathemas of the 
church against the house of ill-fame, and boycott its frequent- 
ers and set up one standard of purity for both sexes and all colors. 

Is. 58:1; Matt. 23:1-33; Luke 3:1-14; Ezra 10:9, 
10; Jer. 32:3-5; 1 Sam. 17:1-58; 2 Chron. 32:7, 8; 
Jonah I : 1-3 ; i Kings 18 : 1-46. 

VII. We need a Revival that will drive out this cul- 
tured skepticism that seeks to foist upon the Church a muti- 
lated Book, that bears the imprint of the beast of the Apoca- 
lypse ; that robs the Bible of its heaven-born light and sets up 
instead in the Holy Placevwhere the Shekinah dwells its own 



1 The capitalization of the trusts formed during the year 1898 aggregated the enor- 
mous sum of $1,200,000,000." — The Kingdom, February 9, 1899. See also the New 
York Herald, November 6, 1898. 

" The total capitalization of these schemes (trusts) floated or in process of being car- 
ried through since the first of January (two months) is estimated to be more than $500,- 
000,000." — Boston Journal, March 6, 1899. 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 1 3 

dim rushlight of human thought ; that claims by its blasphem- 
ous denial of what God declares to possess more wisdom than 
the Eternal Mind ; that rushes in with unholy feet where God's 
own angels fear to tread ; that gives the stone of earth- 
born thought when hungry souls ask for the Bread of 
Heaven; that mocks the mother of our Lord, and puts the 
foolscap on the cross, and charges the white-robed messengers 
that sat in Joseph's empty tomb with falsehood black as hell 
itself. 

The Christian Literature, November, 1895, contains an 
article entitled *' The New Clergy," by Rev. H. R. Haweis, a 
Broad Church Anglican clergyman, London, England, in which 
he says : — 

" At present things look very hopeful. Our Church has 
already embarked, unconsciously perhaps, but irrevocably, 
upon a wide voyage of restatement. It has tolerated within 
its pale restatement of Verbal Inspiration — e.g., ' the word of 
God is in the Bible.' Of Atonement — e.g., 'Christ died for 
us not as a Substitute, but as a Representative.' Of Eternal 
Punishment — e.g., ' the fire of God's wrath against sin is eter- 
nal, but men need not always remain in it. For when the 
wicked man turneth away,' etc. Of Baptismal Regeneration — 
e.g., the Holy Ghost and water are not necessarily simultane- 
ous, but the water is the symbol of a spiritual fact. Of the 
Resurrection — e.g., ' not as implying revival of this body, but 
continuity of existence clothed with appropriate form.' Of 
the whole theory of the Apocalypse — e.g., ' as having refer- 
ence chiefly to the historical occurrences of the first century 
and current Christian anticipations.' Why, then, should we 
not have some restatement of the divine Incarnation?" Why 
not write a new Bible ? 



14 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

Here are a few sprigs from the Poison Ivy of Heterodoxy : — 

** Our divinity is the same as Christ's divinity. . . . What 
Jesus was humanity is becoming." — Dr. Lyman Abbott, Con- 
gregationaHst, The Outlook, January 30, 1897. 

" Punishment pronounced against sin is degeneracy ending 
in extinction." — Dr. Lyman Abbott, Congregationalist, The 
Outlook, April 10, 1897. 

" In a hundred years from now he who looks upon the story 
of Jonah as a fact may be called first cousin to an Egyptian 
mummy." — Rev. Dr. William Lloyd, Congregationalist, Brook- 
lyn, Boston Transcript, February 6, 1897. 

*' Salvation is by incorporation, not by substitution. I cher- 
ish with increasing strength of conviction the reasonableness 
of * the larger hope.' " — Rev. Philip S. Moxom, d.d., [Congre- 
gationalist, <^Baptist]. Statement of belief Springfield Installa- 
tion, Boston Journal, April 4, 1894. 

" We are animals, and we ascended from lower animals. 
Whether we like the fact or not, it is a fact." — Dr. Lyman 
Abbott, Congregationalist, The Outlook, January 16, 1897. 

" I have no hesitation in saying that the doctrine of Verbal 
Inspiration is the legitimate father of nine tenths of the in- 
fidelity of England." — Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, m.a., [Uni- 
tarian, <^Episcopalian], London, Eng., Ho mile tic Review, Vol. 
VII, page 260. 

"■ Certainly, as a matter of fact, the power to resist tempo- 
rarily the divine persuasions is lodged in man ; but this in con- 
sequence of the irrationality that he has brought up with him 
from the animal world." — Rev. Geo. A. Gordon, d.d., Con- 
gregationalist, Immortality and the New Theodicy, page 100. 

"There is no authority in Scripture for the doctrine that 
God puts the penalty due to a guilty person upon an innocent 



I 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 1 5 

one." — Dr. Lyman Abbott, Congregationalist, The Outlook^ 
February 20, 1897. 

''The inherency and the infallibility of the Bible are no 
longer possible of behef among reasoning men." — Rev. S. P. 
Cadman, Methodist, Pastor Metropolitan Temple, New York, 
at Methodist Ministers' Meeting, New York, New York Jour- 
nal, March 7, 1899. 

"The accounts concerning the preexistence of Jesus, his 
supernatural birth, his miracles, and his resurrection are not 
questions that concern the twentieth century at all." — Rev. B. 
Fay Mills, [??????, <^Congregationalist, <:^ Presbyterian], 
Boston Journal. December 27, 1897. 

" You need not ever give yourselves the least concern about 
the old question of God's forgiveness for the past. The past 
does not need forgiveness or atonement in his sight." ^ — Rev. 
B. Fay Mills, [??????, <^Congregationalist, <^Presbyterian], 
Boston Journal, December 13, 1897. 

" I have been in communication with invisible intelligence, 
and these intelligences always claim to be those of persons 
who have once lived in this world." — Rev. Minot J. Savage, 

D.D., [ , <^ Unitarian, <CCongregationalist], Boston 

Journal, February 28, 1899. 

And now we are about ready for the final plunge : — 

" Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable 
suicide in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes 



1" At the Congregational Ministers* Meeting, addressed by Mr. Mills last year, after 
an hour of questioning him concerning his opinions, about thirty of the ministers came 
to him and whispered their sympathy with his views, while not one of them indorsed 
them in the discussion. He believed that if their support could be assured more than a 
thousand Orthodox ministers would take their position on a liberal platform at once. A 
prominent Presbyterian pastor wrote to him last week that he was no farther ahead of the 
Orthodox church than Mr. Beecher was ahead of the church in 1870." — Mr. Mills at 
Hollis Street Theatre, Boston Journal, November 7, 1898. 



1 6 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

almost a crime. Under many circumstances a man has the 
right to kill himself." — Col. Robt. G. Ingersoll, Is Suicide a 
Sin ? pp. [4, 16. 

Titus I : 10-13 ; 2 Tim. 2:17, 18; i Kings 13:18; 2 
Thess. 2 : 11, 12; Jude 1:25; 2 Tim. 3 : 7, 8 ; 2 Peter 3:16, 
17; Gen. 4:3; Gal. i : 8-10; Jer. 36 : 11-32 ; John 20 : 13 ; 
Rev. 22 : t8, 19 ; i Tim. 4 : i, 2. 

VIII. We need a Revival that will promote spiritual wor- 
ship and lead us to remember not that the star-preacher is in 
the pulpit, or the prima-donna in the choir, but that *' the Lord 
is in his holy temple " ; that will change the service of God's 
house from a theatrical performance or a pyrotechnic display 
where polished preachers dazzle and darken with their brilliant 
rhetoric, and unsanctified salaried singers lull guilty souls to 
deeper sleep, and rows of pampered Hsteners rest in easy pews 
and clamor for entertainment, to a service that shall be an 
open door to heaven, where the songs of praise shall be as 
clouds of incense rising to God's throne — the sermon a crown 
of glory for the brow of him who once wore thorns, the prayer 
a golden ladder from God's house of worship to God's- heart 
of love. A service in which the hush of heaven shall quiet 
the troubled heart, and the light of heaven dispel the gloom, 
and the forgiveness of heaven remove the stain. A service 
whose fragrance shall linger with us during the opening week 
and keep us from the smirch of sin, and make drudgery 
worship and difficulties stepping stones to God. A service that 
shall convert a church within whose darkened space no con- 
vert's cry was ever heard, whose stately walls never once looked 
down on tears for sin, into a birthplace of immortal spirits^ 
where angels hover and the atmosphere is tremulous with the 
presence of Jehovah. 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. I 7 

Is. 1:11-15; Lev. 10:1-7; John 4 : 20-24 ; Ps. 96 : 9 ; 
Ex. 40 : 35 ^ 2 Sam. 6:6, 7 ; Gen. 28 : 17 ; Ezek. 33 : 30-33 ; 
Dan. 3 : 7, 18 ; 2 Kings 10 : 20-28. 

IX. We need a Revival that will compel ministers to 
throw off their robes of priestly dignity and their self-saddled 
titles, and prove to the community, especially to the un- 
churched and church-hating sections, that a minister's business 
is not to amass wealth, achieve notoriety, ride the tramp-lecture 
hobby, or poise in spotless faultlessness, once or twice, one day 
in seven, before a well-clad, well-fed congregation of respect- 
ables, or merely to preach the gospel of Christ in the pulpit ; 
but to go to men, where men are, to shoulder the burden of 
the crushed, the down-trodden, the unfortunate, whose life is 
one long cry of pain ; to share the cutting bitterness of pov- 
erty ; to feel if he can the agony and anguish of the hopeless 
hell of social ostracism — earth's punishment for deep-dyed 
sin ; to give his sympathy, his strength, himself to his fellow- 
men, as he did who had not where to lay his head and whose 
death couch was a cross ; to do this, and more, if possible, so 
that he may bring the hand of suffering, sinning humanity into 
the hand, the open, out-stretched, nail-marked hand of Cal- 
vary's Christ. 

" A parish priest of austerity, 

Went up in a high church steeple, 
To be nearer God, so he might hand 
His word down to the people. 

" And in sermon script he daily wrote 

What he thought sent down from heaven ; 
And he dropped this down on the people's heads 
Two times, one day in seven. 



1 8 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

" In his age God said, ' Come down and die.' 

And he called from out the steeple, 
* Where art thou. Lord? ' And the Lord replied, 

* Down here, among my people.^ " 

Luke lo : 30-37 ; Matt. 15 : 32 ; Luke 15:2; Acts 6:4; 
Rev. 1:16; John 13:1-17; 2 Cor. 11:23-28; i Cor. 9: 
23 ; I Cor. 4 : 9-13 ; Is. 52:11; Ezek. 34 : 1-7 ; Ezek. 33 : 
1-9 ; 2 Chron. 15:3; Jer. 2:8; Ezek. 22 : 26 ; Mai. 2 : i. 

X. ^Ve need a Revival that will lynch without judge 
or jury the church entertainment craze ; that will smash up 
the unholy stage, this " abomination of desolation," with all 
its unsanctified accessories that pollute the pure atmosphere 
of God's sacred house ; that will shut up the church fair, 
the saints' barbecue, the vestry junket, and all other eccle- 
siastical vioney-scoops, where the church of Jesus sells herself 
to wealthy worldlings, and barters her influence for unholy 
gain — as filthy as the money for which the traitor sold his 
Lord ; where holy ground is desecrated and irreverence born 
and bred ; where revivals are slaughtered and Christians un- 
fitted for spiritual work ; where the spirit of liberality is pois- 
oned and lessons in advanced stinginess given free of charge ; 
where saints gormandize to economize and waste to save ; 
where giving is stripped of its white robe of spiritual worship 
and decked with the motley dress of bargain driving ; where 
the lie is given to God's gospel of grace and the mission of the 
church misrepresented and defeated. 

Here is an extract from a poster which I saw a few months 
ago in a store window : — 

" The Ladies of the Church in intend to hold a 

Cantata in the Opera House on December 16, 1898, assisted 
by Madame , Directress, from Boston." 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL, 1 9 

The attraction at an entertainment held in a certain Metho- 
dist church, which I know quite well, was a so-called " Scrip- 
ture Cake," made after the following receipt or a similar one ; 

4^ cups of I Kings 4 : 22. 

1 cup of Judges 5 : 25, last clause. 

2 cups of Jeremiah 6 : 20, 
2 cups of I Samuel 30: 12. 
2 cups of Nahum 3:12. 

2 cups of Numbers 17:8. 

2 tablespoonfuls of I Samuel 14: 25. 

A pinch of Leviticus 2: 13. 

6 Jeremiah 17 : 1 1. 

Half cup of Judges 4: 19, last clause. 

2 teaspoonfuls of Amos 4:5. 

Season to taste of 2 Chronicles 9 : 9. 

Here is a partial Hst of '' Side Shows " held within a short 
time in our own city of Somerville by so77ie of the churches of 
Jesus Christ : — 

"Church Fair," "Successful Sale," "Children's Cantata,'' 
"Church Social with Comedy," " Department Store," " A Two- 
Act Drama," "A Ship Social," "Fairy Wedding," "Conun- 
drum Supper," " Chinese Entertainment," " Birthday Social," 
"Red Letter Social," " Bluejay Supper," " A Pop Corn Social," 
"Pigs and Palettes." 

Ex. 32 : 1-6 ; John 2 : 14-16 ; i Cor. 11:22; 2 Cor. 6:16; 
Ex. 36 : 6 ; 2 Chron. 24 : 8-1 1 ; i Cor. 16:2; Jer. 23 : 1 1 ; 
Jer. 32 : 34 ; 2 Chron. 29 : 5, 16. 

XI. We need a Revival that will honor the Holy Spirit, 
the Vicegerent, or better, the Vicar — and the only Vicar — of 
the Great Head of the Church ; that will smash up the eccle- 
siastical "Tammany Halls " and wire-pulling rings, and kill out 



20 THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 

this autocratic, Rome-born, boss rule, and force the pastors of 
all our churches, with the deacons, the stewards, the vestry- 
men, the trustees, the elders, the Sunday-school superin- 
tendents to hand in their resignations, and give the Holy Spirit 
the right of absolute rule in the church ; that will remove this 
deep-seated prejudice and repugnance to revivals ^ and evan- 
gelists, and compel ministers and churches to recognize the 
diversity of spiritual gifts in the church, and to receive the 
Spirit's message even if brought by an unscholarly Amos, an 
enthusiastic Jeremiah, or an unconventional John ; that will rob 
ministers and churches of their pride and self-sufficiency by 
showing them that eloquent preaching, artistic singing, and 
skilful planning in themselves can no more convict and con- 
vert a human soul than they can create a world, and drive 
them in deep conviction of sheer inefficiency to recognize the 
Spirit's sovereignty and supremacy, and to receive for service 
his gracious infilling as a gift from the pierced hand of the 
risen Christ. 

John 7 : 38, 39 ; John 14 : 16 ; John 16 : 7-10 ; Acts i : 8 
Acts 2:1-19; Acts 19:1-6; Is. 6:5-8; Acts 8:15, 16 
Matt. 3 : 16 ; i Cor. 2 : 1-15 ; Zech. 4:6;! Cor. 12 : 1-31 
Judges 13 : 25 ; 16 : 20 ; Ezek. 37 : 1-14- 

XII. We need a Revival that will bring salvation to the 
unsaved, that will cry " lialt " to the great crowds that madly 
rush for pleasure, and break God's law to gratify human lust ; 
that will use the stream of youthful energy and influence that 



1 Objectors to union revival work: " i. Sectarian preachers. 2. Cold-blooded preach, 
ers 3. Conceited preachers. 4. Captious preachers. 5. Ecclesiastical preachers. 6. 
Bookworm preachers. 7. Lazy preachers. 8. Unspiritual preachers. 9. Ambitious 
preachers. 10. Suspicious preachers, n. Unfortunate preachers. 12 ^stheuc 
preachers. 13. Liberalistic preachers. ,4. Conscientious preachers. - Ur. L. w. iMun- 
hall, Methodist Ministers' Meeting, Wesleyan Hall, Boston Traveller, January 21, 1891. 



THE NEEDED REVIVAL. 21 

now turns the Devil's mills, to turn the wheels of church 
activity ; that will convert the home that is prayerless and god- 
less, in whose atmosphere criminals are bred, into a Bethel 
where worship takes the place of blasphemy, and holiness sin ; 
that will bring purse-proud men to humihty, and greed-crazed 
men to liberality, and error-led men to truth, and pleasure-mad 
men to thoughtfulness, and all men, rich and poor, black and 
white, learned and illiterate, to a recognition of the Son of God, 
as Saviour and Lord, 

But I must stop. A Revival is needed — a mighty wide- 
spread Revival. Let us seek for it, work for it, pray for it. 
May the text of the sermon be the prayer of the church in this 
present crisis, and may the needed Revival be granted to us so 
that from the Redeemed on earth, and from angels and Re- 
deemed in Heaven, there may ascend ih^ prelude to the univer- 
sal anthem, that shall be sung when " the kingdom of the 
world is become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ," 
— '' HALLELUJAH : FOR THE LORD OUR GOD, 
THE ALMIGHTY REIGNETH." Amen. 

" Revive thy work, O Lord, 

Disturb this sleep of death; 
Quicken the smouldering embers now 
By thine ahuighty breath. 

" Revive thy work, O Lord, 
Exalt thy precious Name; 
And, by the Holy Ghost, our love 
For thee and thine inflame. 

" Revive thy work, O Lord, 
Give Pentecostal showers; 
The glory shall be all thine own, 
The blessing, Lord, be ours." 



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